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In the wake of the World Series of Poker, the seventh season of the European Poker Tour is set to begin in less than a week in Tallinn, Estonia. Just like season six, this year’s EPT will be hosted at 13 different locations. Missing from the schedule this year will be Kyiv – last season’s replacement for the Moscow stop that was canceled. However, the popular Tallinn will replace the event this year to round out the schedule. For most poker fans, this is welcome news as Kyiv was the least popular stop from season six. Many poker players are looking forward to playing in the city located on the Gulf of Finland with rolling hills and picturesque limestone cliffs.

Previously taking place in November, the Vilamoura, Portugal stop will now be featured in late August to make the event more accessible to tourists. Following Tallinn as second in the EPT schedule, Vilamoura is speculated to increase the amount of participants as well as give players more opportunity to relax during off times and enjoy the locale. The previous second spot, Barcelona, has been moved to replace the vacant November slot this season. In addition, the buy in for Barcelona has been dropped to 5,000 Euros to attract more participants (last season, the buy in was 8,000 Euros).

The European Poker Tour will continue with a trip to London in September followed by Vienna. The fourth stop in the tournament last year was Warsaw, Poland. However, like Kyiv, the tour organizers thought that Warsaw was one of the least popular events last season and made the choice to substitute Vienna this year. Vienna has not appeared on the tour schedule since the first season and is a welcome addition although Warsaw will be completely absent from the tour schedule this year. This will also give Austria two stops this season as the tour will return to Saalbach-Hinterglemm in March.

Following the Vienna stop, Barcelona and Prague will be the last two stops this year before players open 2011 with a stop in the Caribbean – marking the middle of the seventh season before a return to Europe to wrap up. The remaining four events before the Grand Final will be in Deauville, Copenhagen, Saalbach-Hinterglemm and Berlin.

Since season one, the Grand Final of the EPT has been held in Monte Carlo. However, organizers have announced that this will not be the case this season and the final event is, as of yet, undisclosed. There have been speculations as to where the event will take place and some signs point to Iceland, Rome or Cannes.